


Astrid's Tale

by WidogastsWebofFire



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21927622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WidogastsWebofFire/pseuds/WidogastsWebofFire
Summary: Set immediately after C2E89, but also consisting of pre-stream material. After seeing her former love for the first time in over a decade, Astrid reminisces on her relationship with clever young wizard Bren Aldric Ermendrud and their journey from innocent teenagers to cold-blooded killers at the hands of their brilliant yet cruel teacher.
Relationships: Astrid/Bren Aldric Ermendrud, Astrid/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

_He is gone_ , I tell myself.

As I close myself in my bedroom, shutting the door as soft as possible, I mutter it to myself like a mantra.

_He is gone_ , I say, over and over, tying my tongue into bows. I rest my head on the closed door, squeezing my eyes tight shut. _He is gone. He is gone. He is gone._

It isn’t an unfamiliar phrase. There were countless nights, back when he first was admitted into the Sanitarium, that I cried myself to sleep muttering that to myself, a lullaby to keep the guilt at bay.

He is gone. He is gone. He is—

He isn’t, though, is he? I open my eyes and turn around to face my empty bedroom—emptier, it seems, than it was just a handful of minutes ago. Normally, I like the emptiness, the way my footsteps echo back to me, the thick silence that a life alone provides. The rest of the manor is for visitors—coworkers, sometimes students from the academy. The bedroom, though, is just for me. My own impenetrable fortress.

Not so impenetrable, I suppose. He hasn’t even been in this room, but I feel him in here. I can smell him still, the scent of ink and ancient books and soap. The smoothness of his face is still on my fingertips. And his voice. That gentle, broken voice. Instead of my footsteps, it’s his voice I hear.

_“Too many scars.”_

I close my eyes again, tighter this time. _He is gone, Astrid. He is gone._

No. No, he isn’t.

I open my eyes, and despite myself, I wipe away a tear before it can roll down my cheek.

Bren is not gone. He is not locked in the Sanitarium. He is not an escapee, running across the countryside, homeless and cowering. He isn’t dead. All of the ways I’ve pictured him throughout the years are now wiped from my mind, replaced with the tall, put-together, if not stiff man that was just in my parlor. When Halrin pulled me out of the study and said his name, I could hardly believe it. I still can hardly believe it.

Of course, the rumors have been spreading. Rumors of a ragtag band of adventurers who had been there at the time of the Kryn attack a couple days ago. The stories have spread, but I hadn’t been able to confirm if any of them are true. Some say they killed the tentacled servant of a betrayer god in the Chantry of the Dawn. Some say they were Xhorhasian spies who managed to convince King Dwendal they were playing both sides. Out of all the whispers, though, the least believable one was that a former student of the Soltryce Academy—one of Trent Ickithon’s chosen few—was among them. They used another name for him, at first. Widogast, I think. It wasn’t long, though, until they put his real name to him. Bren Aldric Ermendrud.

I thought I could go on dismissing them as stories. Never could I have anticipated him showing up at my doorstep.

I straighten myself out, smoothing out my blouse, running a shaky hand through my hair. Does Ickithon know it’s really him? Does Eodwulf? I haven’t spoken to either of them since the stories started. Rushing over to my nightstand, I open the drawer and shuffle amongst the loose spell components I keep in there—scraps of wool, shards of amber, feathers of various sizes. After a moment of scrambling, I pull out a copper wire and trace a pattern in the air, ready to cast Sending. I should speak to Ickithon first. He would need to—

My fingers stop in mid-air. His face is frozen in my mind, the pained expression as he spoke of Ickithon. Compared to the last time I saw him, Bren looked sane, but some of what he said was nonsense. Something about Ickithon lying to him about what we did back when we were teenagers. He wasn’t specific, but I could see it. He was like a vase that had once been shattered but had been repaired—back in its original shape, but the cracks were still visible.

Absently, my hand wanders up to the scar on my face. I suppose my cracks are still visible, too.

I bite my lip, throwing the wire back into the drawer and collapsing onto my bed. _You can’t do this,_ I tell myself, wringing my hands in my lap. _You are not like Bren. You are stronger. You didn’t let the pain get to you like he did. Look at where you are. You aren’t toeing the line of treason like he is. You are a success where he was a failure. You don’t need to protect him from anything. He spent all those years in the Sanitarium doing that himself._

I let a few somber moments pass before looking around my empty room. Sometimes I wonder, when I have these talks with myself, if it’s really me doing the talking or if it’s someone else.

It’s a tense number of minutes as I wrestle with what to do. I start to go back to the component drawer. Maybe I’ll hold off on telling Ickithon, but Eodwulf would want to know, right? He and I have kept our secrets from Ickithon before, and I’m sure we could do it again for our old friend. I stop myself, though, looking out my window at the night sky. He’s probably asleep or having much more fun than I am right now. Best not spoil his good time, wherever he is. Besides, nothing will change between now and morning. Bren will still be in Rexxentrum. Alive. Sane.

My hand goes to my neck, the eerily smooth skin of the burn scar that sits there feeling warm underneath my fingers. Sometimes, when I think about it too much, it starts to burn again. Like a bit of the flame that made it was sealed inside.

My fingers remain clasped on my neck as I fall backward onto the bed. I let myself sink into the plush pillows and blankets, lush cushions that I could have only dreamed of sleeping in when I was a child.

I shut my eyes again.

And I remember.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One

There was another copper wire in my hand that night. I actually did cast Sending, then. In the corner of a pub, I whispered the message to myself, sending it out into the ether, hoping she would respond.

“Hello, Mother,” I muttered. “I hope you and Father are well. Classes are starting tomorrow for the new semester.” I paused, thinking about adding, _“I am nervous,”_ but decided against it. “Sending my love,” I concluded. And then, I waited for the reply back.

I had no idea what time it was. My roommate Zora had dragged me out of our dormitory to the pub a good while past sunset, and we had been there for at least an hour or so. I worried that Mother might have been asleep. The fall was the best time for the harvest, so many of the farmers in the area would need new shoes for their horses and other tools constructed by the only blacksmith in town. Often, she and Father would be exhausted after a full day. But the words soon presented themselves into my mind, and her voice sounded awake as ever.

“So glad to hear from you, Astrid,” Mother said, a little tickle in my ear as her words come to me. “We are good here, but very busy. Good luck in your new classes. We love you.”

I unclenched my hand, the copper wire that was once there gone into the air. Sighing, I looked around the cluttered room, full of Academy students celebrating their last night of freedom from the shackles of their studies. That was the only way Zora was able to convince me to go out. Scanning the sea of faces, I couldn’t find her among them, but all I could do was roll my eyes. It wasn’t the first time she begged me to accompany her out for a night of debauchery, only to abandon me midway through the evening for something—or, more likely, someone—more interesting.

Resigning myself to my fate of walking back to the dormitory alone, I pulled out my pipe from my satchel I brought with me, deciding to have a smoke before making the trek back down the winding streets of Rexxentrum. It had been my father’s, but I decided to snag it the last time I went home. One memento of home, a little keepsake to remember him and the whole town by. I winced a little bit as I sprinkled a bit of tobacco in the bowl and called a small evocation to light it, sucking in the smoke. I didn’t particularly like smoking. When I first tried it, I had hacked and coughed so much that I thought I was going to vomit. The only reason I still did it was to pass the time and to not seem terribly odd, watching the rest of my peers fall over themselves the drunker they got as the night progressed. The dry feeling of smoke filling my lungs was terrible, but being viewed as some sort of perverted loner was worse, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, through my first year at the Soltryce Academy, it was hard to determine how exactly I was viewed. I wasn’t harassed or ridiculed, thankfully, but that left very little room for me to be paid attention to at all. Zora was always gone, off with some other group of friends or a new suitor. People paid attention to her, and I knew why. She was beautiful, with long dark hair, olive skin, and hazel eyes that almost seemed to glow. In comparison, I wasn’t much to sniff at. My features had always been sort of severe, I supposed. Ever since I was a child, if my hair grew any farther than my chin, it drove me crazy. Since coming to the Academy, I had kept it cropped short above my ears, easy enough to brush out of my eyes and keep it from distracting me from my studies. My eyes were flat brown, not very good for dazzling people, and I was shorter than most everyone in my classes. The Soltryce Academy was filled to the brim with people, hailing from places all throughout Wildemount. To stand out among the student population wasn’t easy, and it seemed that I had slipped quietly into obscurity.

I let out the drag on my pipe, trying not to let my frustration show. Of course, I didn’t want to be ignored. No one did. I had thought that my aptitude for magic and my academic drive would make up for my lack of social prowess. It had been enough when I had been back home, where I was considered brighter than most of the other children I went to school with. Here, though, everyone was brilliant. Even Zora, who I had never seen even open a book, was flourishing, earning top marks in all of her classes. It didn’t take me longer to realize that everyone at the Academy was gifted. It was a requirement to even get in. To truly get ahead there, you couldn’t just be hardworking and talented. You had to be a genius.

Genius. I huffed at the word. Back at home, perhaps I would have been considered one. Everyone told me that I had to get out of our tiny town, go onto the Academy, do great things. Simple, really, for someone as clever as me.

The most ridiculous part was that I believed them.

But a year among some of the most brilliant minds in the country proved that I was just…average. In the bell curve of life, it made sense. I was always more likely to be average than earth shatteringly marvelous.

Resigning myself to that fact, though, didn’t hurt any less.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl smoke a pipe before.”

I looked up, breaking out of my self-loathing stupor. I hadn’t even noticed the boy who strode up next to me. I recognized him. He was hard to miss, honestly, as he was built like a brick wall. Tall, broad shouldered, muscles pushing against the confines of his simple dark tunic. His forearms were exposed, covered in course, dark hair that matched the dark, shorn hair on his head. His eyes were a dazzling blue, boring into me inquisitively. We hadn’t had any classes together, I didn’t think, but I had seen him in the mess hall and in the courtyard. Why he was speaking to me, though, was beyond me. I had to resist the urge to look around me and make sure he wasn’t speaking to someone else nearby.

I cleared all the smoke from my throat before speaking. “I was unaware that my gender prevented me from doing so,” I replied.

“Forgive me,” he said, holding up a hand apologetically. “I didn’t mean to imply I was criticizing you. Just isn’t anything I’ve seen before. Making an observation.”

As if he was the first person to make note of it. “Observation received,” I nodded curtly, and I took another drag off the pipe.

That should have been the end of the conversation. My chilly demeanor was meant to end it, anyway, but this boy apparently wasn’t very good at picking up hints. “The name’s Eodwulf, by the way,” he said, extending a hand toward me.

I looked at it for a moment, then at him. What was his angle? From what I had observed, this boy—Eodwulf, I supposed—was fairly popular, always surrounded by a group of people when I had passed by him before. Hell, I think he may have come by our dormitory before to see Zora. What did he get out of talking to me? Maybe he was trying to get into Zora’s bed. If so, he was barking up the wrong tree. Zora and I were friendly but not friends. My opinion on which boys to give her time to meant next to nothing in her eyes.

I shook his hand, clenching the pipe between my teeth and speaking around it. “Astrid,” I answered in kind.

Eodwulf let go of my hand, but did not break his gaze on me. “You know, Astrid,” he said, tapping a finger on his chin thoughtfully. “You seem familiar to me.”

I shrugged. “The Academy has a lot of people,” I said. “I’m sure we’ve seen each other around. I know I have with you.”

He shook his head at that. “No, I mean outside the Academy. Something makes me think we know each other from somewhere else.”

Laughing, I said, “I can’t help you there. I came from nowhere, basically, so I doubt we ever met.”

“Really?” he asked. “Where are you from?”

“Small town,” I said, blowing out a small puff of smoke. “You’ve probably never heard of it. Blumenthal.”

“Are you serious?” he asked. His bright blue eyes looked eager.

I narrowed my eyes at him, but nodded.

Eodwulf laughed, putting his hand on his forehead. “I knew it! I have seen you around, but couldn’t place you. Of course,” he said, sounding astonished. “I’m from Blumenthal, too.”

I couldn’t help my jaw from going slack a little out of surprise. Another person from Blumenthal, here at the Academy? Most of the people who I had spoken to here had never even heard of Blumenthal. If I couldn’t be the only one in my tiny town to come here, I supposed I really was average.

“You’re kidding,” I said, after realizing I had been staring at him dumbfounded for longer than was socially appropriate.

The boy shook his head. “Serious. My parents run the mill on the edge of town.”

Perhaps I had seen him before, too. My parents never had to go to the mill for much, but I do remember being brought along on a few trips when I was a child, when my mother needed supplies to bake. I didn’t recall seeing any boy my age around there, but I had never been wholly invested in those trips. Baking and those sorts of domestic activities had never been my area of interest. “It’s a small world,” I said. “My father is the blacksmith.”

“You’re Klein’s daughter?” Eodwulf asked, scanning my face. “I see the resemblance. It makes so much sense now.”

I blushed a little at this, and not out of any flattery. If he was saying I looked like my father, it only confirmed my thoughts on how dower my appearance was. Father wasn’t a sour man by any means, but often, his low hanging brow, plateaued nose, and naturally down turned mouth said otherwise. Eodwulf saw that in me, too. What a compliment. Clearing my throat again, I said, “I never knew anyone else from Blumenthal made it out here to the Academy. You must be quite the talent.”

“Actually, it’s not just me.” He turned around to face the crowd of students and shouted toward the bar, “Bren! Hey, Bren! Come here!”

It was a wonder he was able to see anyone in the mass of bodies and faces in the tiny pub we were in. The room was packed, practically vibrating with the fear and excitement that a new term brought with it. No one in the room knew if it was the last night before a months long adventure or a trip into hell. I had heard especially brutal things about year two—the material was more difficult to grasp, the instructors stricter, the work load heavier. Every student had the same look of reckless abandon, the same energy of soldiers going off to battle in the morning. Yet, Eodwulf seemed to know exactly where he was looking.

It feels different, thinking about the first time I saw his face now, almost twenty years after the fact. In my mind, the calamity in the bar grows quiet, the room slows until everyone else has frozen completely. He is the only one who moves, a bright blaze against the dull flames surrounding him…

Of course, that’s not how it actually went. I hardly even noticed him slip in between the rowdy pub patrons, standing next to Eodwulf silently.

“There you are!” Eodwulf exclaimed as he pulled up next to him, slapping him on the back in a friendly greeting. “Bren, this is Astrid Klein. Astrid, this is Bren Ermendrud. He’s from Blumenthal, as well.”

In Eodwulf’s towering shadow, Bren Ermendrud looked, I imagined, much like I did standing next to Zora. Plain. Average. He was a head shorter than Eodwulf, with no muscle to speak of. In fact, he looked down right scrawny in the too large set of blue robes he was wearing. His face was dotted lightly in freckles, so light that I could barely make them out in the dim lighting of the pub, and his hair was a muddy auburn. There were probably ten boys in this pub alone that looked like him.

The only thing I do remember catching my attention—and this, I know for sure is true—was his eyes. Bright blue. Piercing. Alive.

“Pleased to meet you,” Bren said, curtly, giving a stiff nod in my direction, before turning his attention to Eodwulf. “Listen, Wulf. We should go back to the dormitory. It’s getting late, and I—”

Before he could say anything more, Eodwulf broke out into a laugh, lightly punching Bren’s shoulder. “Bren, it’s not even midnight. The night is young! When is the next time we’ll be able to do this again, huh? You need to loosen up a bit.”

As if Eodwulf actually hit him, Bren rubbed his shoulder. “Which is the only reason I’m out here at all. It’s been a few hours. We had our fun. We should leave now.”

“Eodwuuuuuuuuulf!”

At the sound of his name from the frothing crowd of students, Eodwulf whirled around to see a beautiful, dark skinned girl waving at him. She was swaying on her feet, only held up by her clearly bedraggled friend. “Come walk me home, Eodwulf!” she screamed at him, laughing at some joke that we weren’t privy to.

There was a glint in Eodwulf’s eye that wasn’t there just a few moments before, and he turned back to the two of us, a hungry lean to his voice. “I should at least walk her to the door. I’ll be right back, Bren.” Bren started to protest, but Eodwulf was gone before he had a chance to get a word out.

For a moment, we let the room continue on around us, trapping our quiet reserve in a sphere of noise. I smoked my pipe, tossing occasional glances in the silent boy’s direction. He was stiff next to me, his attention flitting from his shoes to his nails to the front door where Eodwulf was casually leaning. I saw something in this boy, something that I recognized. The feeling of being so out of place that it made bugs crawl around under your skin.

“So, you’re from Blumenthal, too?” I asked.

There was a delay in his response, as if he just remembered I was there. He looked at me with something akin to confusion and gave a single nod.

“Funny, I thought I was the only one from there attending the Academy. Guess I’m not as special as I thought,” I laughed, trying hide the truth in those words.

Bren grunted in reply, almost too quiet for me to hear in the discord of the room.

“Who are your parents? I wonder if I’ve met—”

“Excuse me,” he said, quickly and under his breath, and before I could finish my sentence, he dashed into the throng of people, pushing his way through bodies with the same frantic energy as someone being chased down a dark alley by a group of bandits.

 _Well, there’s that_ , I thought. It wasn’t as if I expected him or Eodwulf to be enraptured with me. Given how popular Eodwulf supposedly was with opposite sex, I’m sure he was simply looking to woo the only girl he didn’t recognize. And Bren…well, he seemed like me: longing to be anywhere but here. I didn’t blame them for leaving me unceremoniously. Just because we came from the same town didn’t mean we were instant best friends.

It sure would have been nice to have _some_ friends, though.

I stayed behind for a few more minutes, finishing what little tobacco I had in my pipe and tapping the residue into the dirt as I left the pub. As I looked up and down the side streets as I walked back to the dormitory alone, I kept hoping to see a pair of juxtaposed boys, waiting to escort me back just as they had the drunk girl from before.

It was wishful thinking, though. Eodwulf and Bren were nowhere in sight the entire trip back. I found my way back to the dormitory, slipping into my empty room and falling into bed, closing my eyes and hoping to dream of a reality where someone cared enough to walk me home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note that I am going to be making up some details that we have not learned yet. Biggest example of this in this chapter is Astrid's last name. If we eventually learn it, I'll go back and change it, but there's just some gaps I have to fill in myself for right now. As for posting schedule for this, I'll try to post every couple of weeks, but I do have a full time job and other writing projects, so I can't promise a precise time frame when they will go up. Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment of any praises, critiques, lore/backstory corrections, or anything you want!


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

“Eodwulf is a meathead. Don’t waste your time on that one.”

Instinctively, I looked around the courtyard nervously, hoping not to catch a glimpse of the wall of a boy we were speaking of as we passed through. It was mid-morning, and the main courtyard outside the class towers was thriving with students lounging on the low hanging brick dividers, darting through the crowd to get to their next class, or groggily walking off their hangovers from their debaucherous fun from the night before. It seemed like the entire school was out of their dorms already, and Zora’s voice was louder than I was comfortable with.

“Keep your voice down,” I chided, my head slumping. There was no sign of Eodwulf’s massive frame mingling amongst the throng, but Bren was easier to miss. The last thing I needed was him gossiping. Though, I supposed that was what Zora and I were doing, wasn’t it?

Beside me, Zora scoffed. “Oh please,” she said. “Even if he could hear me, I doubt he would know he was being insulted. His skull is thicker than that gruel they serve us in the mess hall.”

Someone’s shoulder knocked into mine as they passed by us. I turned around to look at who they were, but they had mixed themselves into the mess of students before I could identify them. Obviously, they didn’t think twice about stopping for me. “I don’t know, Zora. He is at the Academy, after all. You have to be intelligent to even get in here in the first place.”

“Oh, Astrid,” she sighed, shaking her head, the long braid she had woven her hair into swaying as it hung down her back. Even though she came back to our room hours after I had fallen asleep, she was the picture of attentiveness as we walked into the main building to the class towers. In the dim light of the stairwell leading up to the class towers, I could still see her bright hazel eyes and glowing skin, almost as if a night of drunken shenanigans was part of her daily skin routine. Honestly, with how much she was gone on any given night, maybe she had somehow discovered the fountain of youth. “There is a great difference between being smart and having common sense. Any old idiot can read a book and answer some questions about what they read. Dogs can do that, can’t they? Just mimic back to you what you told them to do if you give them a treat? But a dog doesn’t know _why_ he’s doing the things he’s doing. That’s Eodwulf. He follows directions well enough, but ask him to form a cohesive thought for himself, and it’s as if nobody is home.”

“Let me guess,” I said, trying to keep my grin hidden in the shadows of the stairwell. “He turned you down?”

Zora’s jaw dropped in outrage. “Astrid, what do you take me for? I’ll take a lot of criticisms, but if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s petty.”

“Right,” I said, only thinly veiling my sarcasm, trying to conveniently forget that last year, she didn’t speak to Camille VanHouten for a full month because she thought she laughed when she’d tripped on a cobblestone on the way to class one morning.

“If anything, I turned him down,” Zora continued, starting to huff a little as the spiraling stairs only seemed to get steeper. “He tried going after me the first week we were here! No subtlety, that one. He tries to get with anything that moves. That’s probably why he was talking to you last night, out of the blue.”

“Oh, good.” I didn’t know why I sounded so crestfallen at this. From the way Eodwulf had made himself known about the Academy, it wasn’t a surprise that he may have played the field. My shoe caught on the hem of my school-mandated skirts, and I had to catch myself before I tripped up the stairs. I supposed it was in the way that Zora said it, like it was really an offense against me. Eodwulf had already made his way through the entire school, and finally, last night, he landed on his last chance at getting lucky. My face grew hot. Thank god for the bare candlelight we had in that seemingly endless tower.

“See, that’s what sets you apart from him, though,” Zora kept going, just as we hit the top landing of the staircase, walking through the archway into the classroom. “You have book smarts and common sense. You smelled his bullshit a mile away and didn’t fall for it. Good for you!”

I smirked again, but my heart was only half in it. “Yes, good for me.”

The classroom was much like every other classroom at the Academy: a sloping room, cone shaped like a tiny amphitheater. We stood at the top, descending down the several rows leading down to the main platform for the lecturer, looking for open desks that were already scarce, though we were about ten minutes early. The room itself smelled stale, like the whole thing had been left in a closet for a decade and just recently been unpacked. There were windows lining the stone walls, but they were all covered up by thick scarlet curtains, the dim outline of sunlight just barely sifting through them. The biggest source of light were the hundreds of candles that sat scattered about the room, mostly dotting the platform behind the lectern, but there were even a few hanging from the walls, a lit chandelier full of them swinging from the ceiling. Some professors would let natural light into the classroom, while others…well, you didn’t get to be an arcane expert without a few eccentricities, I supposed.

“Oh god,” Zora groaned, glancing over the spotty seating. “It looks like everyone had the bright idea to show up early, didn’t they?”

There appeared to be no two open seats next to each other, only a few singular spots left in the room at all. This wasn’t exactly a problem for me. It wasn’t a necessity to sit next to Zora. If anything, it would be nice to get away from her incessant chatter for a little while so I could focus on what was happening in class. I scanned the sea of students, mostly just to say that I tried and could be more authentic when I acted upset that I would have to sit alone. Maybe that spot in the front would work—

My eyes widened as I saw who was in the seat next to the one I had my eye on. Hunched over in the tiny desk, book open and already scribbling notes onto the page, was Bren.

I nudged Zora. “Hey, look who’s here.”

Her gaze followed mine, but she frowned when she saw him. “Who is that?” she asked.

“Bren Ermendrud. You remember? I mentioned Eodwulf’s friend last night? That’s him.”

“Oh,” Zora said, profoundly uninterested. “Odd. He seems sort of plain to be hanging out with Eodwulf.”

My face flushed again, and I trotted the couple steps down to the row he was seated in. “There’s an open seat up here. I’ll meet you afterwards, all right?”

I looked back at her just long enough to see her shrug and move up a couple of steps to a row further back with an open chair. I sidled down the row, trying not to step on any of the other students’ belongings they had set on the floor. I arrived at the open seat, draping my bag around the back rest and rummaging through it to pull out my needed books and note taking materials. As I did so, my eyes kept darting up to catch a glimpse of Bren. Unsurprisingly, he was oblivious to my presence, glancing in his open text and scratching away furiously on his parchment as if it had done something terrible to his childhood pet.

Once my books and parchment were arranged on the desk top, I sat down, smoothing out my skirt partly to flatten any wrinkles and partly to wipe the sweat that was building up on my palms. I frowned as I looked down at my lap. Why was I so anxious all of a sudden? Last night, Eodwulf was the one paying me any mind. Bren politely tolerated that I was in the same space as him. Perhaps that was why I felt so nervous sitting next to him. That sounded ridiculous, of course. There were hundreds of other students who had never looked my way. Why was it so important that he did?

I cleared my throat. “Bren, wasn’t it?” I spoke in Zemnian, knowing we would be one of the few in the room to understand each other that way.

It took a moment for the relentless scratch of his pen against paper to stop, as if my words reached him five seconds later than normal. Slowly, he craned his head up, eyes meeting mine, just as blue and striking as they were the night before. “Oh,” he muttered, like the sleep was not quite out of his voice yet, though his eyes were clearly awake. “Yes, and you were…”

He searched my face, as if his answer was supposed to be written there somewhere, but as the pause continued, I answered for him. “Astrid. Astrid Klein. Eodwulf introduced us last night at the tavern, remember? Apparently, we both hail from Blumenthal.”

“Ah,” Bren said, though his brow remained furrowed. “Yes, of course.”

That was all he had to contribute, it seemed, for he turned back to his book and began writing again.

Taken aback by his abruptness, my mouth hung open for a second in astonishment. Really? That was all? While I knew I was not exactly the best conversationalist, my other peers would at least indulge me when I would speak to them. Where was the contrived “how is your morning?” or the obligatory “what lovely weather we’re having”? My hands balled up into fists in my lap, and I had to unclench my teeth before I spoke again. “I was telling Eodwulf last night that I found it interesting how so many of us made it here from Blumenthal. We are such a small village that I thought I had to be the only one.”

“Apparently, that is not the case,” he replied, not taking his eyes off his paper.

“I just thought it was curious, is all,” I continued. “The chances of two of us getting here from there are slim, much less three—”

“Listen.” Bren set down his pen brusquely, staring straight ahead. “Is there a reason you’re talking to me?”

I paused, not sure how to answer that. My face warmed again, and I tried with all my might to force the pink that was surely creeping into my cheeks back down. “I-I don’t know.”

Sighing, he looked back over at me, those blue eyes staring daggers into me. “Well, it is clear that I am in the middle of working on something, so I would appreciate it if the idle chatter would cease. I’m not here for dull, arbitrary conversations. I’m here to learn magic, so if you would excuse me.”

Not waiting for my response, he hunched back over again, but I scoffed before he could pick up his pen again. “As if you’re the only one here motivated to do so.”

He looked back at me—not angry, merely confused. “I’m sorry?”

“I’m not speaking to you to distract you,” I snapped. “I was being kind. Polite. I figured since we were both from the same town, we could find some common ground.”

Bren maintained his befuddled expression. “And what exactly would that do? If I were to talk to you, I would waste time I could be learning something. Your parents are surely paying their share to send you here, yes? Do you want to waste their hard earned money just to socialize?”

“I hardly consider a polite conversation between classes to be ‘socializing.’ Definitely not as excessive as you’re implying,” I huffed.

“Yes, of course, but polite conversation usually ends after the other person stops talking.”

I narrowed my gaze at him. “It’s clear to me that you don’t know the real meaning of ‘polite,’ in the first place.”

To my surprise, he laughed. It was the first time I had seen him crack a smile, but there was a bitterness to it, shaking his head and chortling like he was the only one in on the joke. “Do you think manners is going to matter in the long run, Miss Klein?” he asked me. “I am going to graduate from the Academy with top marks and serve my country with the skills I learn here. I do not think how _nice_ I was to people will make much of a difference, in the long run.”

Crossing my arms, I looked down at my desk, looking cluttered and askew compared to his. “I supposed I thought you could use a friend. That’s all.”

“Ah, and there’s the difference between us,” Bren said. He put his hands on his desk, folding his hands together on his open page, careful not to smear any fresh ink. “I can see how you’d think we’re quite similar. We both have roommates who are popular, who are gone a lot from our rooms in the evenings. When we are with them, we fall into their shadows. We might not be the most beautiful or outgoing, but we make up for it in intellect. An alliance between us—from your perspective, anyway—seems natural enough. Except, you made the assumption that I was just as sad and lonely as you were.”

Bren looked at me, a pompous smirk on his face that I would have liked to slap off of him. The Academy was strict about casting spells outside of class time, but the urge to throw out Mage Hand just so I could strike it across his arrogant mouth vibrated through me like electricity. My face burned, and I knew it was flushed red. No amount of deep breaths would be able to get rid of the embarrassed pallor I had written all over me like a book. And as he kept his gaze steady on me, I could tell he was just loving it.

“I don’t need people to like me, Astrid Klein,” he said. “You do. That is the difference between us. Let it be a lesson, yes?”

He broke his gaze, glancing back down at his open book in front of him.

My fingers twitched in my lap as I resisted the urge to lash out at him. I swallowed.

“You don’t need people to like you?” I asked. “Then I suppose you won’t mind me saying this.” This time, I turned and looked at him, and he broke away his attention from his book as soon as my eyes were upon him.

It was my turn to grin at him, and I made sure every last ounce of spite was packed into it. “Go fuck yourself, Bren Ermendrud.”

A flicker of something passed over his face, though it was hard for me to grasp what it was. It wasn’t anger—no, he was too cool-headed for that, too confident to get riled up so easily. It was the linger of his gaze, the slight narrow of his eyes, the twitch at the corners of his mouth that let me past that placid façade. Even if it was for a fleeting moment, I caught a glimmer of what was going through his mind.

Perhaps he cared a little bit more what I thought than he claimed.

Bren opened his mouth, apparently trying to concoct a rebuttal that was taking him some time to come up with, but before he could say anything, the door behind the lectern creaked open.

And the Devil walked into the classroom.


End file.
